I write this today in somewhat of a state of bliss. I am high, having taken a few Percocets (please, spare me the bullshit – my life, my body, my right – DEA be damned) which has had the desired effect and taken the edge of these last few insanely stressful days, but I am also sort of out of it. But my mind is clear and I am relaxed. I am taking some down time right now, unwinding from a stressful last few days. I think by the time you are done reading this post, you’ll understand why. I am sitting here watching Logo and reflecting on a lot of things while I answer the occasional e-mail, Facebook comment and such.

So the first thing up on the list is the hospitalization this evening of Kerri Logsdon, a friend and board member of Norman Queer Pride. She is in OU Medical Center tonight in intense pain. The doctors don’t know exactly whats wrong with her, but they are going to do a lot of tests. I took her to the hospital tonight and am now staying at her place to keep an eye on things. Someone came and kicked the door in to the apartment next door, so this will ensure that her place stays safe while she is away.

Kerri has driven me nuts this week, but its not really her fault. Her family life is a mess and I know I am not the most pleasant person to be around when I am hurting. She is just lonely but unfortunately, having someone around who wants to go on and on about their medical problems really brings me down. None the less, since no one else is there for her and I don’t have anything better to do (actually, I do…) I may as well try to ease someone else’s suffering even if only by a little bit. What goes around comes around, so I figure that if I do this good turn, maybe someone will be there for me when I need it. So I am happy to do it, but also glad I have a break now. I hope Kerri feels better and gets some relief, she is not a bad person to be around.

In other news, I am expecting a settlement check today for a lawsuit against a company I used to have a warehousing contract with. Their insurance company decided to settle and they finally got around to mailing the check a couple of days ago from Phoenix, so I expect it will arrive at my attorney’s office today. Nevermind that according to the terms of our agreement, the check was to be sent via FedEx and was supposed to be in the mail like two weeks ago, so this insurance company apparently just decided to do what they felt like doing. I feel sorry for the opposing counsel, John Walkup of The Edmonds Cole Law Firm in Oklahoma City. He is stuck in the middle of the whole thing and helpless as much as anyone else. I think he is sincere in his efforts and while I am not a patient person when money is concerned, I remind myself that its indecent to hold someone in Oklahoma City responsible for the actions of some twit for a claims adjuster at an insurance company in Phoenix.

But all is well that ends well, so now I am deciding where to put the money to work for me. I did get a bit more than I expected, so I am reminded of my civic obligations to help others when I am able to do so. To that end, I think I am going to make some charitable donations with some of the funds, and I have decided I am going to start by giving $100 to RAIN of Oklahoma, which provides HIV testing services with no cost or obligation. While I disagree with some of the things the organization has done recently, I am not going to be petty. The mission is worthy of support.

I have already donated $200 to Mike McKee, my attorney who handled the case. He was only going to take $700 for his services, I told him to go ahead and take $900. Mike is from a different time, a time when people became lawyers to serve their communities and help others, not to get filthy rich. Mike and I have many viewpoints that are worlds apart on topics like religion and politics, but I have a great amount of respect for the man. He works tirelessly for his clients and in this case, he is giving me a very fair shake.

A third donation is going to be made in the way of a loan to a guy in Oklahoma City I know. While he is not gay, he is still part of our community and has had a string of bad luck. Without going into details, he has been out of work and his landlord told him he could work around the complex doing make readies and such in exchange for free rent. He did a bunch of work, but didn’t get it in writing, and so when the rent came due, the landlord took $100 off the rent, which was not the deal. Then the jackass posted an eviction notice. So I am gonna loan the guy about $550 to help him get on his feet. He says he’ll pay me back and while I believe he is sincere, I dont know the guy that well so I am considering it a donation until proven otherwise. I do expect it back, but I’m not counting on it.

In other news, I have launched three new blogs to cover specific aspects of my life. I created a blog to cover and provide updates on the License Plate Lawsuit. You may want to bookmark that page if you wish to follow the case. I opened a second blog to be dedicated to my love of travel, called Traveling with Keith. Few people know about my hobby of screen writing, but the other night I fired up Final Draft and cranked out a few pages of script that maybe one day will turn into something marketable. The name of that blog is Keith Silver Screen. I haven’t done anything with it yet, but I will sometime soon.

I am looking forward to buying an iPhone and dumping Cricket’s lousy service. While I don’t miss having a $200 a month cell phone bill for unlimited everything, I do miss having unlimited everything. And while I hate AT&T with a passion, I hate Sprint even worse. In fact, look for the announcement soon: I will be filing a small claims lawsuit against Sprint for the manner in which they fucked me over on my account. Plus, I am starting to become a real fan of Apple stuff, and for many years I was about as anti-Mac as they come.

I really like the idea of Apple’s MobileMe service, which allows you to use a computing cloud to have ONE address book, calendar and so on that updates itself without having to plug in dongles and such. For instance, you add an appointment on your iPhone while in the field, then you come home to your MacBook and the thing is already there without having to plug in and sync. Yes, I know you can sync Outlook on Windows, but Windows sucks and Outlook is such a piece of shit (its full of security holes) that I refuse to install. As if that weren’t enough, to have Outlook you have to buy Microsoft Office which is not something I’ll be doing. Not when I can use the freely available OpenOffice which is every bit as good and comes with the low, low price of free. Of course, this does require me to make my next computer a Mac as well, which I think I will be doing. In fact, I really like the new iMacs with their big, beautiful and bright displays. I’ll wait to see what the verdict is on the iPad before I ditch my Toshiba in favor of a MacBook or iPad, as the Toshiba still has a lot of life left in it.

Being as how I have been up for damn near an entire day now, its time to wrap this up. So I will close with a brief talk about my longing for Chicago. More specifically, an adventure that possibly awaits me next time I go there.You see, I have never been able to stay away from Chicago for very long. For me, the windy city will always be my true home. No matter where I go or how long I stay, I am still only visiting. Home is where the heart is and my heart always belongs in Chicago and its memories.

Anyway, the adventure I speak of is as follows: there is a guy who now lives there and works at a gay bar, but he once lived here in Oklahoma. I like him, not necessarily as a boyfriend – but I haven’t ruled that out. I am not going to identify him, but those who know me know that I like them barely legal. This guy is in his mid 30s and has gray hair, which for anyone who knows me and what I like is probably reading this in utter shock. While I do find him attractive, its not his body that I am drawn to. He has an aurora of mystery about him that really intrigues me. He is very shy despite working in a job that puts him in a position to deal extensively with the public. I think he isolates the personal him from the professional him. He is a deep thinker and extremely intelligent, with a vivid imagination capable of painting very thought-provoking pictures in the mind. I have had occasion to read some of his short stories and thats how I know this. He is well read, can hold an intelligent conversation that keeps me on my toes.

His writings do seem to indicate low self esteem as he is always beating up on himself. He seems to feel unwanted. I do admit that I dont know much about him, I only met him a couple of times while he lived here and he does not remember me, but I remembered him. He has been single for quite some time and I think its likely that he has been hurt before, probably very badly. I must say with what I know of him thus far, he is the partner of my dreams. Smart, intelligent, witty and good looking in a way that generates appreciation and respect instead of someone who is just hot in a “piece of meat” sort of way. I don’t think he has any idea just what a wonderful person he is, though, of course I need to get to know him much better before I can say this is the way of it. I am speaking purely based on what I have found out about him thus far.

Someday soon, I will find my way to Chicago for yet another visit. I talk to this guy online occasionally. He has said he’ll let me buy him a cup of coffee if I find myself in town. But where, if anywhere, does it go beyond that? Do I want it to go beyond that? These are the things that I have been thinking about. I have a habit of scaring people away and this is one that – if I decided to pursue him – would be worth keeping. I can tell that if I was his and he mine, he would be a loyal companion who would be in it for keeps.

The only question that remains is how do I explore the possibilities without scaring him away. The plate case ensures that I am going to be living in Oklahoma for quite a while as the case winds its way through the courts here. Perhaps thats a good thing for this situation, it will force me to take it slow and steady, which is whats going to be needed here for sure.

With most broadcasters and even cable networks putting their entire shows (and not just clips) online, one has to wonder if the television as we know it has not been rendered obsolete. From full length movies to an entire season of a television series, its possible to get pretty much everything online now. Of course, watching everything on a computer is not the most comfortable thing to do. So perhaps televisions may do other things in our homes, like act as large monitors to display images from our computers.We know this is possible with the technology of today, in fact the center of most progressive home entertainment systems is now a powerful computer and not a home theatre box.

But has the idea of television as we know it – a device dedicated to displaying signals received either from a pay cable service or over the airwaves – become nothing more than a memory? I think we are getting closer to that day as companies with products like Netflix with its streaming on-demand TV and Apple with its iTV begin to offer ala carte content on an as needed, when needed basis. It started with the DVR, the ability to watch things when we wanted to watch them, not when some suit in a corporate office somewhere decided they would air. We are moving into a world when we can be entertained when we want, where we want and how we want.

Blackberry and Palm showed us a cellular phone could be more than just a phone. Apple with its iPhone showed us that a phone can be fun and productive at the same time. The possibilities are kind of exciting to think about. Next week, Apple is expected to announce the debut of a tablet computer. What kind of innovation will this bring about? Are we about to enter an era where the laptop becomes irrelevant?